Dark Avatar chat log
This is a running log of the developer chat in #galciv on February 7, 2007, for Dark Avatar. ---- Where in DA can you see how much you are gaining from the new economic and research treaties? :Brad: I will send this to CariElf -- Cari Begle who is our lead developer. :Cari: The economic treaties are listed under income on the Domestic Economy screen and the research treaty production is on the research screen Will the release of DA be accompanied by patches with non-"feature" improvements to DL (such as the new tech tree display method, for example)? :Brad: The new tech tree display is a Dark Avatar feature. We are releasing GalCiv II 1.50 (Dread Lords) which contains bug fixes and such we found while doing Dark Avatar. Why is there a spending split between military, social and science production? I can understand the spending split between military and social production; factories can only produce so much. However, research labs are another structure all together. So why must science spending be affected by this split as well? :Brad: The way to look at it is that you are hiring workers. Which are a finite resource. You can split them off in 3 ways. So even though military and social production use the same buildings, you are still effectively having to divide your work force up. Why release 'Gold Edition' at the same time as the expansion? And why isn't Dark Avatar in stores? :Brad: With regards to Gold edition -- well, here's a way to look at it, we're gamers ourselves. And one of our pet peeves about games has always been that expansions come out and if we don't have the original we have to go and find the original which can be really expensive for people. So when we decided to do this, we wanted people new people to be able to instantly be able to be up to speed with the game. :As for the second question: Shelf space is extremely expensive. It's almost impossible for a company our size to get two SCUs of the same product line at retail at once. So we couldn't easily get Dark Avatar at retail unless we wanted to pay a lot for shelf space. And had we done that, we would have had to cut the feature set of Dark Avatar down significantly. And we really wanted Dark Avatar to be more than just a normal expansion but to be a quasi-sequel in some respects. So by having it direct, we were able to add a lot more features to it. And then by having a Gold Edition, people would still have the option to get it at retail. Spies. The new DA spy system requires that you injure your opponents by disabling tiles in order to perform basic intel. Why isn't there an option of not injuring your opponents or "friends". :Brad: Espionage is never friendly. As the British once said, gentlemen don't eaves drop on gentlemen. Will I be able to use other peoples ship packs with the new custom race creation? :Cari: Yes, you can set the custom race's style that they are using. So that you can create the Klingon race and use the Klingon ships, or Romulan, etc. Are there some changes to the combat system in DA? And what is the difference between the first galciv2 to DA? :Brad: Yes. The big change is that combat is now based on weapons. Rather than ships. In GalCiv II, combat was ship to ship. That is, it would sum up your attack and then sum up a given ship's defense. Now, each individual weapon fires and wears down the defense on a target ship. The net effect of that is a capital ship with lots of weapons can kill, in a single round, a bunch of small ships. Of course, we also made capital ships cost a LOT mroe both in resources and in logistics. Can i load one of my saved games from DL into DA :Brad: I highly doubt it. :Cari: No. Where can I find out how much powerplants are affecting a given colony? :Brad: That would be in the improvement summary screen. Why can't building mining bases be accomplished by Constructors...why is the new ship type necessary? :Brad: Because constructors build starbases. It's like saying why can't constructors invade planets. They're very different types of things. Plus, you could build a ship that has both a constructor module and a mining module. So you could have one ship that does both. It just has to do with the default ship types we provide to keep the price down. Does distance reduce the amount you can get from an asteroid mine? And if so, how much? :Brad: Yes. The further away asteroids are from their target, the fewer resources (as a %) you get. So you ahve to make some tough decisions about where you send those resources to. To the nearby planet or the mroe distant one that has a lot of factories on it. Production goes down 10% for each tile. Down to a minimum of at least 33%. Will Stardock become involved with any Xbox live marketplace games, Wii virtual console, or the ps3 marketplace (I am unaware whether it has a special name or not)? :Brad: Very possible regarding Xbox Live Marketplace. We don't have anything in particular going on. But I am a big advocate of what Microsoft is doing with Live on Windows. You mentioned having a ship with construction and mining modules. If you have a ship like this, will it still be destroyed when it builds a starbase, or will it just be left without the construction modules (or with the construction modules disabled)? :Brad: It would still be destroyed. Because what the constructor module does is convert the hull and other parts of the ship into raw material for the starbase. The starbase itself is not located within the starbase module. Rather, it a nano-based technology that converts the matter of the ship into the starbase. Are there any plans for a second expansion pack with more robust diplomacy and improved AI? :Brad: The AI is always being improved. I have an AI update on my computer right now that I'm just waiting for marketing to be okay with us releasing an update. Every time I play, I update the AI. ;) As for the more robust diplomacy, that will depend heavily on what players ask specifically. Adding "features" is easy. Having opponents that use those features takes more effort. When we play the old Dread Lords campaign, will we be able to use the improvements to the game system from Dark Avatar? :Brad: No. We did this because the new features of Dark Avatar come from the story. I.e. during the campaign of Dark Avatar, the asteroid mining and custom environments are explained during the campaign. Since Dread Lords takes place first, it woudln't have made sense for those features to show up. You stated: What the constructor module does is convert the hull and other parts of the ship into raw material for the starbase. Does this mean that a Huge hull will provide a larger Starbase then using a Tiny Hull? Would available weapons/defenses on a converted ship affect initial module option on a constructed starbase? :Brad: The module can only convert so much matter. So no, the module does 1 thing. Are there any changes to the Metaverse? and will DL and DA have separate Metaverse's? :Cari: The metaverse is using the same table, but DA will affect the scoring because there are more factors. Multiplayer? hehe its been talked about since the birth of calciv2, but are there any plans for that in the future? :Brad: Probably. Depending on how well Dark Avatar does, we'll have an idea on the budget for any future expansion. We're currently working on the MMO Society. In doing so, we are developing a multiplayer library. So it may become economically feasible to share a single multiplayer engine between all our strategy games. That way, the cost is reduced, and can be more justified into an expansion pack. But there's no promises in that. Right now, most of our development is in a fantasy turn based strategy game. So with any luck, we'll be able to use the same multiplayer code in multiple titles at once. What are your favorite new AI tricks/capabilities? :Brad: The high level CPU options make the AI much better about what it researches. But it is in the tactical handling of ships that I think people will notice the most. Where ships will bypass obvious targets and go after more fruitful targets that are nearby that aren't as obvious. When I see that happening, it usually surprises me and that's how I can tell it is using the advanced CPU algorithms. Can you give us more detail on the graphical improvements of Dark Avatar. How will they effect those looking to create custom content? :Brad: Paul... :Paul: We added a lot of new Extras, and changed the way things are organized. :Brad: A LOT of new ship parts. :Paul: So it is alot ez er to design cool stuff and you can save them off as templates. :Brad: Ooh. Impressive use of the language. ;0 The Templates are one of the best new features. You design your ship, you save it as a template. :Paul: Which are a killer new feature if you ask me. :Brad: And then in future games you can reuse them. To tell the AI to use ship X for its fighter ships, ship Y for its constructor, ship Z for its frigates, etc. So the result is that players can get a lot more visual improvements. :Paul: We also made several breakthroughs on texturing and using the normal maps more efficiently. So we were able to make one texture go a lot further. For example, the New Military base is also used for something like 20 new extras, and those extras were used to design all the new Drengin ships. :Scott: For anyone that hasn't seen: http://forums.galciv2.com/?AID=142855#1116526 :Brad: So there's no extra memory used. So by reusing the textures we can have much better graphics without using more RAM. For those who pick up Gold Edition in stores, you'll notice the manual is a lot bigger this time around. What is new in this manual? Why the extra heft? :Brad: The new manual explains the game a lot more thoroughly. So we don't just explain the basics of the game but why the game works the way it does. There's also a lot of backstory interjected into the manual to explain why things are the way they are. Why do planets and stars appear so close together on the map? Why does population increase so fast? And things like that. The manual also gives a lot of the overall GalCiv universe backstory so players know who these races are and some of the game history. Regarding asteroid mines.. Is there any plan to make specific mine types avail as as already the case with galactic resources? :Brad: We will probably play that by ear. Originally, the mines could product a number of different resources. But it got a little unwieldy, so we simplified it. We may revisit it someday in the future. Have range and sensor values been scaled according to map size? :Brad: No (no differently than the original anyway). Why is it that when you invade a planet, you have to commit mass genocide? :Brad: You technically aren't committing genocide. A planet's population is only the # of registered citizens. Citizenry in the GalCiv universe right now is somewhat like the book Starship Troopers where only those who also serve in the military get to vote. The reason why populations will increase dramatically -- far faster than they could literally change from month to month -- is that people are joining your civilization, becoming part of your civilization. So what you're really doing is some of them die but others effectively become disenfranchised (so to speak). It's explained a bit in the new manual but the short answer is, you're not literally eliminating every person on the planet. Unless you use a spore ship, then yes, they're all dead. Are there any plans for elaborating on the background/history of the GalCiv universe in order to give more character to the AI's? :Brad: They are quite a bit in the new manual and on the website, but I'm always open to talking more about the backstory. So if people have questions they want answered, just ask them on the forums and I'll happily write on it. ;) I am very new to Galciv2, in fact just bought it two days ago, but love it so far and have a campaign going on in which I am doing very well. So my question is this, do you think I should go ahead and get DA next week so I am current as it were, or should I spend more time with DL learning the intricacies of the core game? If I go ahead and get DA, will I still be able to play DL with the same campaign yet have access to all the new improvements? :Brad: Yes to all. Are there any plans for GC to be ported to linux/mac os? :Brad: I'm afraid not. I like Mac OS X but we couldn't afford to port it over, especially now with it being so much easier to use Windows games on a Mac. In the Campaign, why didn't you go with a narrator for the story line instead of using type for us to read. It may have added to the drama of the story line. :Brad: That is true. However, the story line got written and tweaked very late into the story. The other issue we run into may seem strange but there's CD space. We just barely fit onto two CDs. If I had my way, it would be DVD (but that's a whole different story). But probably the biggest reason for text for audio is space. Is the AI able to create its own ships from available parts instead of using default available ships? :Brad: The AI will use templates and then builds them up from there. It doesn't use "extras" on its hull choices. But the nice thing is that now there's templates for every single race. So AI ships will look a lot nicer. In the original GalCiv II, I basically had the AI just use the hulls and stick a few things on the ships that were pretty simple. How feasible would it be to incorporate Heroes into the next expansion? Would it require more code mods than multiplayer? :Brad: That would probably be beyond the scope of an expansion. But if we do a GalCiv 3, you can pretty much assume those would be in. The fantasy strategy game we're working on has heroes. ;) Is there any way to set the tone you put to your diplomacy offers? I.E: Ask/Demand/Beg for credits instead of just putting on the table and letting the game decide how you ask? :Brad: Not presently. The reason we haven't is that as cool as those features are, AIs don't tend to use them. In other games that have done this, they AI has tended to only barely make use of this and I tend to not want to put in features that the AI doesn't make full utilization of. It's just a different philosophy on the game features. But it is the kind of thing I would like to see us add in the future as long as there's AI time allotted to handling it well. For those of us who have no intention to ever let something as DRM-infested as Vista touch our machines, how long should we expect to be able to remain loyal Stardock customers on XP or suitable alternative to Vista? I.E. how long will you support XP? :Brad: Let's put it like this -- Dark Avatar supports Windows 98. DL left most of the artwork and content of the game in an open and mod friendly format, has DA changed how mods are handled to any great extent? And are there any long term plans to open up more of the game mechanics through an SDK or even (way in the future) releasing some of the source? :Cari: The modding is much the same. There's a few things that we've added, like changing race movies and music in the race configs, but there's a lot of stuff that we couldn't open up to change without adding a scripting engine, so we wouldn't realistically be able to put that in except in a full sequel. I'd like ask one of the other developers...what was the hardest part of the game to make, and what was the most fun? :Brad: That depends on the developer. So let's ask them. Jesse? :Jesse: The most fun for me was working on the graphical enhancements. Subtle things like the ships flying around planets, planet lights, etc. :Drew: I LIKE MAKING THINGS GO BOOM :Laurence: Yes yes, we know what you like. :Brad: That was drew. He made explosions. :Scott: And the new intro cutscene :Paul: The hardest thing for me was making the unique ships for each race, it was however the most rewarding thing as well. We ended up with over 320 unique ships. :Brad: We were a little embarrassed when we saw how lame our explosion were. :Jesse: The hardest part for me was the ship templates. That took a lot of changes to existing code. :Cari: The hardest thing for me was working on the ship moving code. As for most fun, I'm proudest of the DesktopX screen code, but I had a lot of fun working on the race configs too. :Charles: I had a lot of fun working with the espionage system changes from DL to DA. :Scott: um....that epic generator was kinda tough :Brad: Hey scott, how about that epic generator. How'd that work out? :Scott: :( :Ross: Testing wears down your soul :Jesse: I also had a lot of fun with the asteroid fields. :Scott threatens to leave the chat :Akil: The most difficult for me was coming up with the new aliens for DA. But it was also the most fun. :Brad: I had the most fun trying to get the AI to research new technologies more intelligently. Which is also the most dchallenging because that depends on some many conditions. :Cari: Akil: the guys who wanted to know where all the female leaders are grateful. :Scott: The most fun for myself was playing the game and seeing how well the new features fit in. So how many have been working on DA? :Brad: Over 15,000 people in 156 countries. Not including the robots. :Charles: :) :Cari: And the clones. You forgot the clones. :Paul: Divided by 10000 :Brad: But seriously about a half dozen people were involved on it day to day. Thanks for the earlier Vista response. However, my main concern is the bundling of DirectX 10 and Vista. Since your latest games require DX9.0c to run, do you see a time in the near future when the same might be true of DX10? :Brad: Who knows. I don't' see anything in DirectX 10 that we need though. Because Windows XP is going to be our primary focus for many years. We make games for people to play. If there was something in DirectX 10 that we really really needed, we would have to weigh that against the number of people we lose. There's a reason, after all, we still support Win 98 and ME. Are there plans to release a map/scenario editor? :Brad: Not in the Dark Avatar time line. But if we do another expansion pack someday we might. How much will utilizing dual core processors have on the game? :Brad: Basically it means if you have the high CUP options on, you get it for free. That is, you get the more advanced AI algorithms without it affecting performance. On the software development topic, if you had to look back and refactor one thing, what would you change? :Brad: Oooh. Scott, want to answer that one? :Cari: Poor Scott. :) :Scott: The epic generator was more pain that I expected. MUCH more. I'll write a journal about the tears ;) :Brad: ;-) :Scott: It'll come back in some form though. Learned a lot. :Cari: We all have lots of things we'd like to change :Brad: Yea. lot of good technology made there. It'll be back someday. Will the minor races act more aggressively and more realistic?? In DL the always allied almost with everyone. :Brad: Not immediately. But I've been thinking of revisiting them in a post release update because I would like minor races to be more interesting. :Mike: Now, to spice things up a bit... a question on Sins of a Solar Empire Now that sins of a solar empire (ironclad) is onboard stardock. So have you met Blair Fraiser, if so. Do you change ideas and the like? :Brad: Yea. It's been really fun working with Blair and the Ironclad guys. They have a great game design and we have very similar ideas on what sort of game Sins should be. I think Sins will become the de-facto space RTS. When I play it, it's kind of like GalCiv + Total Annihilation + Homeworld combined together. It's really sweet. You guys must know about Sins of a Solar Empire. The question is: do you exchange ideas? and if so, what has come out of it ;) :Brad: Yes. we do exchange ideas. Most of the ideas have to do with game mechanics, UI, and things like that. Does the Gold edition (available in retail) have something extra like ship parts or maps unavailable via download?? :Brad: Nope. Spending Slider. Why are workers a finite resource? Shouldn't the number increase as your population of your civilization increase? :Brad: Workers are a finite resource since, well population is finite. But in so far as your manufacturing isn't really tied to population. The thing to remember is that the people who do manufacturing work in the factories whereas the people doing the research are in the labs. Now, early on, we did actually have buildings use up your population. With unemployment rates and such. But the micro management involved in dealing with that made it not fun. So the system we have is the compromise we came up with. My favourite part of DA is the custom opponents. Will we ever get data telling us generally how each of the AI templates play so we know which ones to pick for our creations? :Brad: You can pick which AI they use when you design them. But eventually I plan to document the different AIs more thoroughly on-line. What is the Drengin recipe for chilli? :Brad: LOL. It involves torian flesh. Has the 'melt my pc' random event been removed? By this i refer to the one that spans an entire map full of tiny ships. :Brad: Yea, we capped it. How did time constraints affect development for the expansion in ways that was different than the original game? :Brad: Well, this time around we finished earlier than we had anticipated. Which brings us to the special announcement. As some of you may know, we have already made th game available to those who pre-ordered it. We also have now made Dark Avatar generally available tonight. Anyone who buys Dark Avatar tonight will be able to immediately download it. Gold Edition will be generally available in the next few days immediately as well. So rather than having to wait until the 13th to get Dark Avatar, it's available now. So how much of your time DID go on programming? vs playing the game? :Brad: I'd say for me, as the AI developer, it's probably 50/50. But I think generally, it's more programming than playing. But my position is a little unique since I have to watch the AI play and try out strategies against it. Usually, when pirates appear, they have 2 techs above that of the major military power. I.E: A pirate armed with 10 Laser IVs when the strongest major ship is a medium with 5 Laser IIs. Has this been balanced in the expansion? :Cari: The Pirates get the highest tech level that has been researched, so someone out there has Lasers IV. :Brad: The pirate event was nerfed considerably since the beta. Can you make it so that Pirates are weaker than major military powers? :Brad: We did. The final is different than the beta. '' Is there the possibility of having a Ship Designer that will allow you to select all the components to build a ship, and save them, so that when you have reached the appropriate tech levels you can simply choose them? Often times I don't want to play the game up to the full tech levels, and then just spend days designing ships... it would be nice if there was some sort of Ship editor/creator that was accessible outside of the game... similar to a map editor ...'' :Brad: Templates kind of fill that role. You design your mega ship, save it as a tempalte. Only thing missing is having it outside the game. But you can still go into the game and design up your mega ship. I agree an external editor would be nice. but in the meantime, just load up the game like this: ::gc2darkavatar cheat :Brad: Then once in the game, hit Ctrl-Shift-R to get all the techs. Then just decide your mega ships and then save it as a template. Had the epic generator not been suggested and attempted in DA, would the expansion pack have had more in it? :Scott: When we calculated the time the E.G. would take to finish verses the new content that could be put in, we opted to put the generator on the back burner and refocus on more content. You'll now notice many new random events, several new United Planets issues, more mega events, ect ect that wouldn't have been available if we had tried to get the generator done (even knowing that it wouldn't be up to our standards). So, in the end, us scrapping the E.G. did result in significantly more content...and served as R&D for the feature in an upcoming title. There is the possibility to use assigned in-game music for every race we create? :Brad: 'fraid not. That's a good idea though (writing down for future). Is there any way that a minor can become a major or join the UP? And can the UP meet more often? Like when too civs are Hostile to each other? :Brad: No, minors are always minors. The UP is a once a year kind of thing. Any details on Stardock 4x Fantasy? :Brad: It's an epic scale turn based strategy game set on a randomly generated fantasy world. The Silmarillion is a major inspiration for the world we're trying to create. Incidentally, note that I said Silmarillion and not LoTR. Open chat follows 20:10.38 Any last words from the devs who haven't spoken much before I open it up? 20:10.49 Nope. 20:10.50 go 20:10.55 * Zoomba sets mode: -m 20:10.55 no, we're all shy :) 20:10.56 DARK AVATAR ROCKS YEAHHH 20:10.57 "buy our game so we can keep our jobs" 20:11.03 Let loose the dogs of war! 20:11.03 Thanks guys for your input ;) 20:11.04 indeed 20:11.05 :) 20:11.07 WHY CANT I QUIT YOU!? 20:11.10 You guys rock! 20:11.12 i already did Frogboy :P 20:11.14 Thanks! 20:11.15 thanks 20:11.15 * freidog has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving...) 20:11.20 Thanks for the Vista responses, Brad 20:11.26 Any plans for having UP frequency customizable? 20:11.26 Thanks 20:11.27 Thanks to you all for a good Q&A session :D 20:11.27 Thank you for the chat. 20:11.28 * Guest45 has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving...) 20:11.35 thanks! 20:11.36 do you really thing the world needs anymore Tolkien derivitive fantasy for the next...oh, 50 years? 20:11.43 You guys are teh awzmz! 20:11.45 Will you have transcript of the chat posted somwere? 20:11.47 Vinco, even if we start using DirectX10, we'll be able to fall back on DX9.0c if the computer doesn't support DX10 20:11.50 * LegacyCWAL has quit IRC (Connection reset by peer) 20:11.53 * yay54 has quit IRC (Quit: Leaving...) 20:11.54 Gambler: yes 20:11.56 > Question Has Stardock or a known third party released something for GalCiv2 similar to GalCivWriter for GC1? 20:11.56 Thanks for ignoring my questions :D interesting chat anyway 20:12.01 Gambler: http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Avatar_chat_log :-) 20:12.02 All I can say is GALCIV2 has converted me from Space Empires IV. 20:12.03 20:08 GreenReaper: For those who've joined us late, you can read the previous questions and answers at http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Avatar_chat_log 20:12.12 Glad you like th egame. 20:12.22 Question Do any of the devs have any suggestions to offer to budding video game developers, etc, et al? I know that's really broad, but I'll appreciate every nugget of wisdom I get. 20:12.28 Space Empires converted me to GalCiv2 20:12.28 dano: no, but in GC3 we'll be revisiting the feature 20:12.30 Drengin, I'd have to look for the links 20:12.41 but someone did make an editor, I think 20:12.44 go to DigiPen awww yeah 20:12.53 or Full Sail :) 20:12.55 Work hard. 20:12.57 lol 20:12.58 Just wanted to say thank you for creating a very fun and addictive game, I rarely buy games online, but DA is one I'll pick up 20:12.59 LOL a friend of mine went to DIgiPen and dropped out ;) 20:13.00 DoctorNick: That's worhty of a dev journal 20:13.04 Thanks Jake! 20:13.06 QUESTION Approximately how many Mega events are there? 20:13.07 DigiPen roolz FullSail droolz 20:13.09 I went to Digipen 20:13.11 Cari_Elf: Terro Stars? 20:13.16 Hah, I prefer an actual tech school :) 20:13.20 any future plans? 20:13.25 Drengin: not at the moment 20:13.37 didnt think so but worth asking :O) 20:13.45 drengin: sleep? 20:13.53 Al3 - all future updates will be for Dark Avatar. 20:13.55 whats that?? 20:13.58 ;) 20:13.59 hmm, is there someone from support here? my Dark Avatar stopped working after the activation (no joke) 20:14.00 LOL 20:14.02 1.5 is the climax of Dread Lords. 20:14.05 Question Will pirates ever become more of a factor in the early game, like in the Civiliztion series? 20:14.11 But yeah, if you wanna become a game dev, focus on coding or art; no one gets hired as a pure designer 20:14.14 e-stab - what does it do? 20:14.18 nothing :) 20:14.22 I mean when you go and run it? 20:14.23 lol 20:14.23 Frogboy how well does DA play on that XPS of yours? :p 20:14.26 It has to do something. 20:14.27 I downloaded this afternoon 20:14.27 like crash. 20:14.32 it worked once 20:14.33 join #chatquestions 20:14.34 gh33da - nvidia drivers suck. 20:14.42 now I tried to reload 20:14.43 I have nvidia 20:14.44 But it plays nice and fast on it as long as I stick with XP. 20:14.45 :( 20:14.51 had to activate which seemed to work fine 20:14.52 Ross: Actually, I'm a programmer, but I WAS hired originally as a designer (even though I was looking for an engineering position) 20:14.56 I have XP. 20:14.57 but the game doesn't load anymore 20:14.57 :) 20:15.00 So that's not always true 20:15.03 Ross, that statement is a little contradicting...or maybe I dont get it. 20:15.03 Question will the old extra's from galciv2 gold edition be returned in DA? 20:15.13 i heard 8800 isnt so good on vista 20:15.17 e-stab, e-mail your debug.err file to carielf@stardock.com 20:15.20 okay 20:15.22 will do 20:15.24 Servius you heard well. 20:15.28 Servius: They've only just started releasing drivers with 8800 on Vista 20:15.31 Any comments on Society? 20:15.33 You're a standup guy Brad 20:15.36 drnick: don't beleive those commercials where you get a job "making your own game" 20:15.36 i hate my gtx 20:15.39 drnick: it 20:15.41 by designer I mean the guy that comes up with all the awesome game design and write up what the game will do... and doesn't actually code or make any art 20:15.43 Brad is very cool. 20:15.45 Society - it's sloooowly coming but our main dev focus is on the fantasy strategy game right now. 20:15.49 's a group effort, and it's normally someone elses idea 20:15.55 QUESTION What is the probablity of another GalCiv2 Expansion? 20:15.56 There's so much infrastructure needed for an MMO and we're building that up as we go. 20:16.01 QUESTION Where did the nickname Frogboy come from?? :D 20:16.02 Depends on how well DA does. 20:16.09 that dosent meen you can't add your own ideas and contribute to the 'design' 20:16.20 DA needs to sell at least 25,000 units stand-alone to justify another one. 20:16.22 When can we expect the game in Europe (Poland)?? 20:16.28 but you're not just hired to make a game idea and have eveyone else make it 20:16.32 Drengin - I really like frogs and other critters. 20:16.33 Frogboy, you may be a redneck if you go to a family reunion to look for a wife. 20:16.42 lol. 20:16.44 hahahhahaa 20:16.59 I see a lot of people that say "I wanna be a game designer! But I hade coding and I have no artistic talent! Give me money for my ideas!" 20:17.00 well thanks for the early release, i just bought DA (only had DL for two days!) and its installing as I type! Can't wait to play! From one industry inside ( I work at Battlefront.com) to another, well done and good luck! 20:17.00 Level design is another way to get in though, too. Especially if you know a variety of tools and have work on a good public mod to show off. 20:17.01 I have a pet turtle at home that I've had for over 20 years now. 20:17.09 I've noticed that the AI doesn't create faster constructors or colony ships. Has this been fixed in DA? 20:17.10 vista=obliter ated by O&A 20:17.12 * willy88 punches willy88 around with a large spiked baseball bat! 20:17.17 thanks madmatt! 20:17.18 Frogboy are you poisonous? 20:17.23 02:15:26 <@Frogboy> DA needs to sell at least 25,000 units stand-alone to justify another one. <-- so you will tell us how many copies left before an expansion? :D 20:17.31 1.4 did. 20:17.37 Servius: I sometimes spout flames. 20:17.49 Is it better to buy from a store or should we just buy it online. 20:17.51 Ru - I'll keep people informed on sales. 20:17.54 after party at my house! 20:17.58 GalCiv II sold > 200,000 units so far. 20:18.04 wedel, I think we're still negotiating localizing Dark Avatar 20:18.06 NICE 20:18.14 I see a lot of people that say "I wanna be a game designer! But I hade coding and I have no artistic talent! Give me money for my ideas!" <---- you want to be an Art Director 20:18.18 Well, GalCiv II is awesome so, thats not surprising. 20:18.25 He really spouts flames at around times like a quarter to three 20:18.28 QUESTION - What does FROGBOY mean?????????? 20:18.28 Thanks Servius. 20:18.37 gh33da - indeed. 20:18.45 As a art director, I take offence to that Raos 20:18.48 ross 20:18.48 ross 20:18.49 * Multianna has joined #GalCiv 20:18.49 Dano2 - just a handle I used to use when playing FPS's online with friends. 20:18.50 * SDC_Guest2 has quit IRC (Connection reset by peer) 20:18.52 Cant spell 20:18.53 I always had liots of critters. 20:18.57 * willy88 punches willy88 around with a large spiked baseball bat! 20:19.00 frogs, turtles, etc. 20:19.00 hey, you can make stuff 20:19.03 Hence the name, frogboy. 20:19.04 * willy88 slaps willy88 around a bit with a large trout 20:19.05 willy88, please knock it off 20:19.13 Thanks Devs! Frogboy esp for answering all the q's and Zoomba for wading through the questions 20:19.23 Well, when finishing up a game is a thought stuck in the back of my mind all day, I think its a tad fun. :D 20:19.24 woah ping got alot of em 20:19.25 Who killed the chat? 20:19.27 That was great 20:19.32 Did we lose a continent somewhere? 20:19.34 wow a net split. 20:19.58 Thanks for being here. It was interesting and fun. 20:20.00 lol Kris 20:20.03 They were unworthy 20:20.04 Mormegil those are some awesome normal maps 20:20.06 WE don't *have* a network to split 20:20.09 thanks 20:20.11 lol 20:20.16 There should be a mock religion aroudn GCII... 20:20.21 there is 20:20.26 I have my own cult of followers 20:20.29 Cari has a cult 20:20.38 Carinoids 20:20.38 lol 20:20.39 You're all free to worship me, if you wish 20:20.40 yay54 there should be so we can all get tax credit for buying the game 20:20.42 Okay, I'm heading out. 20:20.44 Thanks to all the devs for the GalCiv series. 20:20.44 Too bad I'm already a worshipper of the FSM... 20:20.45 Thanks so much fo rshowing up. 20:20.45 Thanks to all the people at Stardock for making it the most beloved game companies around 20:20.48 Have fun. 20:20.49 night Frogboy 20:20.50 Someone mind kicking Vinco so I can log back on on my main nick? 20:20.52 Thanks everyone! 20:20.54 Have a great night! 20:20.54 "mock" religion? you mean Lord Kona /won't/ answer my prayers? ....it's as though my whole world is turned upside down 20:20.55 =P 20:20.57 I used to have a cult... I need to show up in-game more often 20:21.02 I'll be on the forums if anyone gets stuck of has any questions. 20:21.10 Justice: what game do you work on? 20:21.13 The link to my fan club: http://forums.galciv2.com/?aid=32881 20:21.16 Thanks again, Stardockians 20:21.17 MxO 20:21.23 So any chance unique weapons can be added? Or maybe wandering monsters? I'm thinking like the Star Trek Doomsday device. 20:21.27 * Island_Dog runs off to join the fan club 20:21.32 * ggoria is now known as P5yy 20:21.36 Justice: did you ever have an opportunity to punch Raph Koster? 20:21.51 he killed my dream 20:22.07 Im out of here, thanks for joining in everyone. 20:22.13 Bye 20:22.14 Thorfog, no new weapon classes (something other than beam, mass drivers or missiles) in the forseable future. There were space monsters in GalCiv1, but the users asked us to take them out of GalCiv2 during the beta 20:22.15 night paul 20:22.15 just thought I'd ask ;) 20:22.45 I do miss the space monsters 20:23.13 I once had a space monster. I name him Dingo. I had to blow up Dingo. He crushed by 133B 49A Dreadnought.... 20:23.24 lol 20:23.50 I don't know, I didn't play the first GalCiv (shame on me), but some other games I played had them, and they usually killed me ships. :( 20:24.11 'night folks 20:24.20 The Artist is heading out! 20:24.28 Thank you for all of your support. 20:24.33 night akil 20:24.33 Farewell. :-) 20:24.35 bye artist 20:24.42 Goodnight 20:24.50 as always, thanks for the fan input! Keep it coming, and tell your friends. 20:24.57 good night, everyone. Have fun with Dark Avatar :) 20:25.00 bye all 20:25.07 later everyone! 20:25.12 Long live the devs! 20:25.43 Cari but i'm the only italian fan you have it seems :P 20:25.44 Thanks for a wonderfull chat!! 20:25.54 * gh33da pokes a stick at WR_away 20:26.10 mostly are throughout the usa :P 20:26.19 Ru, I had another for GalCiv1 but I haven't seen him in a long time 20:26.50 too bad... :P 20:26.56 i would have met him :D